Anger and frustration in France's overseas territories ahead of snap polls
World
Anger and frustration in France's overseas territories ahead of snap polls
(AFP) - Macron's decision to dissolve the National Assembly has disrupted the country's political landscape, leaving parties scrambling to prepare for the first round of legislative elections on 30 June.
The French constitution mandates that a vote be held no less than 20 days and no more than 40 days after the dissolution of parliament.
However, some overseas territories hold their elections on Saturdays rather than Sundays. This is the case for Saint-Pierre and Miquelon Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, Saint-Barthélémy, Saint-Martin and French Polynesia.
That means the delay will only be 19 days for citizens in these areas – a threat to constitutional rights, according to the rights and liberties watchdog Adelico.
Court appeal
The association this week filed an appeal with the Constitutional Council to have the legislative poll dates pushed back.
"Not only does this decree seem to have been drafted in haste, but perhaps also by forgetting that certain voters live neither in Paris nor in mainland France," Jean-Baptiste Soufron, a lawyer and member of Adelico told FranceInfo on Tuesday.
A second appeal was filed for the same reason by lawyer Olivier Taoumi, who lives and works in French Guiana.
Soufron said the tight timeline to organise polls will create a difference between French people: "Some will have the normal rules applied and others will not."
The deadline also risks "discouraging" or even "preventing" certain candidates, he added.
Twenty-seven candidates will need to be elected to represent France’s overseas territories out of the 577 French constituencies.
According to a decree published on Monday, candidates have until 16 June to declare their candidacy.
The official electoral campaign will open on 17 June at midnight and run until midnight on 27 June.
Bills on hold
"It’s going to be an extremely short campaign to find the funding, to find the candidates and to form the alliances," Benjamin Morel, political scientist and lecturer at the University of Paris II told FranceInfo.
The other concern for overseas territories is the fate of parliamentary works already underway that have ground to a halt two years early.
Morel says that in most cases, projects will become obsolete, or at least suspended until the new parliament can assess if it will be put back on the agenda.
That means nothing will happen until at least 8 July, when the new parliament is called into session form.
This is the case with French Polynesia for example, where the commissions of inquiry are at a standstill, including the long-awaited probe into the nuclear tests carried out in the Pacific until the end of the 1990s.
Perhaps in a bid to avoid further violence in New Caledonia, Macron announced this week that a contentious plan to reform the electoral roll rules would be "suspended" to promote "dialogue and a return to order".
In Mayotte, a bill on controlling illegal immigration which was to be presented to the Council of Ministers in July has been derailed by the dissolution of parliament.
The French island in the Comoros archipelago off southern Africa struggles with illegal migration from neighbouring non-French islands as well as mainland Africa.
Mistrust and government
These tensions have heightened the already present sentiment of mistrust towards the central government.
The question now is whether the overseas territories will choose to punish Macron's leadership at the legislative elections by turning to the far-right as they did in the European polls.
Five out of eleven of France's overseas territories and departments voted for the far-right National Rally candidate Jordan Bardella last weekend. These include Mayotte, Guadeloupe, Reunion Island, Guyana and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
This resulted in a surge for the party at a national level which saw the National Rally take 31.36 percent of the vote compared with 23.34 percent five years ago.
Although Macron's Renaissance candidate Valérie Hayer came first in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélémy and Wallis and Futuna, the National Rally was second in many places.
Only Martinique decided to go with the far-left representative Manon Aubry (France Unbowed), just 1 percent ahead of Bardella.
